Pastedowns to upper and lower boards

F-ar6c

Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashm. 463

Bod-Inc. A-154 et al. Fragm. I and II. In situ pastedowns glued to the inner surfaces of the upper and lower boards of an incunable Sammelband most likely bound in the 1490s, originally hooked around the endleaves.

General Information

Material:
Parchment

Place of Origin:
England

Date of Origin:
c. 1300

Script, Hands:

A tidy and compact English cursive book hand (Anglicana) with split and looping ascenders pointing to a date c. 1300 (ex inf. Ralph Hanna), with many abbreviations. No rubrication.

General Remarks:

Function in host volume:

Fragm. I serves as the pastedown to the upper board and was originally hooked around the front endleaves (fols 1-2).

Fragm. II, pasted over a leaf of blank paper supplied by a nineteenth-century conservator, is the pastedown to the lower board, with a conjugate hook wrapped around the blank paper endleaves (a bifolium).

Original Condition

Dimensions (Page Height):
at least 200 mm

Dimensions (Page Width):
at least 150 mm

Height of Written Area:
177 mm

Width of Written Area:
115 mm

Number of Lines:
at least 43

Number of Columns:
2

Width of Columns:
at least 55 mm

Ruling:
Plummet or hardpoint.

Numbering (pages, folios, etc.):

Fragm. II foliated 85/86 (visible on the hook).

Current Condition

More about the Current Condition:

The written area is intact. There is, however, some tearing of the outer margins, incurring small losses of text.

Content

Content Item

Text Language:
Latin

Title:
Sermones Fratrum Minorum: Collectio generalis Fratrum Minorum

Content Description:

Two leaves (Fragm. I and II) from the same English manuscript, evidently a collection of sermons containing material identified in Schneyer’s listing in Repertorium, vol. 7, pp. 1-11 of the de tempore cycle of the Collectio generalis Fratrum Minorum in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 7932, fols 123r-170v, a widely circulated set of Franciscan sermons from the thirteenth century, most likely of French origin.

Fragm. I is the pastedown to the upper board. It was lifted when the host volume was repaired and rebacked, probably in the second half of the nineteenth century, and pasted down again in a slightly different position. It was originally hooked round the endleaves (fol. 1-2). Fragm. II is hooked round the endleaves at the back of the book (a blank paper bifolium) and serves as the pastedown to the lower board. It remains in its original position, but was lifted and pasted over a blank paper leaf during the nineteenth-century repairs.

Originally a verso. The recto of this leaf is pasted to the inner face of the upper board and cannot be inspected.

Three sermons, the first of which is listed by Schneyer as Collectio generalis Fratrum Minorum, no. 92 on I Pt 3:14 ‘Si quid patimini’ (the epistle for the fifth Sunday after Pentecost), here wanting the beginning (Fragm. I cols a-b), the second on Mt 5:20 ‘Nisi abundaverit’ (the gospel for the fifth Sunday after Pentecost) identifiable as no. 93 of the same collection (Fragm. I col. b), whereas of the third (no. 94 in the Collectio generalis), on Rm 6:8 ‘Si mortui sumus’ (the epistle for the sixth Sunday after Pentecost), only the lemma is preserved (Fragm. I col. b). See Schneyer, Repertorium, vol. 7, pp. 7-8. The Munich manuscript Clm 7932, fol. 157vb-158rb, has subject headings for the individual sermons which are not included in the Oxford fragment.

Originally a recto. The verso of this leaf is pasted to the inner face of the lower board and cannot be inspected.

Three sermons, the first of which consists of the ten concluding lines of Collectio generalis Fratrum Minorum no. 97 (Fragm. II col. a) for the seventh Sunday after Pentecost, the second no. 98 on Rm 8:17 ‘Si filii et heredes’ (the epistle for the eighth Sunday after Pentecost) (Fragm. II col. a), and the third, which is imperfect, no. 99 on Lc 16:8 ‘Filii huius seculi’ (the gospel for the eighth Sunday after Pentecost) (Fragm. II cols a-b). See Schneyer, Repertorium, vol. 7, p. 8. Here too, Clm 7932, fol. 159rb-vb, has subject headings not included in the Oxford fragment. The lemmata for the sermons in both fragments, which correspond to standard readings for the Sundays after Pentecost, are those used in the Roman rite, which was followed by the Franciscans. The proximity of the feasts on which the sermons in Fragm. I and II were to be preached suggests that the two leaves derive from a single sermon collection, and that they may have followed on one after one another in the lost codex discissus.

Glosses and Additions:
Alphabetical section markers in the outer margins, perhaps relating to a register of the contents of the codex discissus. This system is not employed in Munich Clm 7932.

History

Origin:

The early provenance of the fragment is not known, but the presence of a handwritten table of contents, to which additions were subsequently made, and the inscription ‘Astronomia et Cosmographia’ on the tail edge of the host volume suggest that the incunable Sammelband formed part of an institutional collection such as an Oxford college.

Provenance:

Host volume:

1. Elias Ashmole (1617-1692).

2. Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, 1692.

3. Transferred to the Bodleian Library in 1860.

Persons and Institutions:
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.

Host Volume

Title:
Astronomical Sammelband.

Date of Origin/Publication:
1494-1534

Place of Origin/Publication:
Printed in France, Italy, and Germany; bound in England.

Shelfmark:
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ashm. 463

Remarks:

Contents:

Six incunabula in chancery quarto, dated 1478-1494, with manuscript notes at the beginning.

fol. 1v-2r: Manuscript (2 paper leaves), the original flyleaves. Notes on the Signs of the Zodiac and the Seven Planets (fol. 1v-2r). Table of contents (fol. 2v).